ABBILDUNG MIT MIKROWELLEN.

It is shown that scattering bodies can be imaged with the aid of microwave imaging techniques, but with a resolution which is of the same order of magnitude as the wavelength employed. Wideband imaging leads, even in the case of large apertures, to an improvement in the quality of the microwave images. However, the quality of the microwave images is in no way comparable to that of optical images simply because the details to be resolved are always of the same order of magnitude as the wavelength and not several tens of powers greater, as is generally the case in optical images. For this reason scattering bodies imaged by microwaves appear smoother, since, apart from edges and corners, the radii of curvature of all parts of the surface are always of the same order as the wavelength or greater than it. This leads to reflection effects which are known in the literature as ″hot spots″ and can only be eliminated by an appropriately large measurement aperture which encompasses the reflected ray to be determined from geometrical optics.